A former associate of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has allegedly earned 6.5 billion rubles ($101.9 million) from deals with the ministries of defense and emergency situations, according to an investigation by Russia’s The Insider news website. The Insider’s investigation follows the high-profile sentencing for embezzlement and quick parole in 2015 of Yevgenia Vasilyeva, a Defense…
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Some of Russia’s most well-known celebrities and public figures are speaking out in support of the mass opposition protests that have rocked central Moscow over the past three weeks. On Saturday, nearly 1,400 protesters were detained during the most recent unauthorized rally as thousands took to the streets to demand that opposition candidates be allowed…
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DRONTEN REFUGEE CENTER, THE NETHERLANDS — Artyom Shitukhin decided last March that enough was enough. Following what he described as months of harassment by police, and expulsion from the university in his hometown of Pyatigorsk, the LGBT activist bought a one-way ticket to Morocco with a stopover in Amsterdam, where he got off the plane…
DetailsOn July 31, 2019, at 19:23, the reactor of the innovative Unit 2 of Novovoronezh Phase II for the first time was brought to the design power capacity. “The key event occurred as scheduled and in accordance with the pilot commercial operation program. We have successfully completed the comprehensive measurements program at 90% power capacity.…
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Russia‘s media regulator said on Thursday it planned to change the law so it could fine British and other foreign media working in Russia for breaching impartiality standards, a step it called retaliation for London fining Russia‘s RT television channel. Moscow last month warned British media operating on its territory that they should be ready for consequences after…
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Russia‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday it had the impression that the United States was looking for a pretext for conflict in the Persian Gulf, the state-run RIA news agency reported. “Events there are really moving to a dangerous point and there are risks of a large-scale military clash,” RIA cited Foreign Ministry…
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Five people have been detained as part of criminal proceedings into mass civil unrest related to last weekend’s opposition protest in Moscow, with more apprehensions expected, Russian investigators said. Police detained more than 1,300 people in central Moscow on Saturday, some violently, at a march in support of fair local elections this fall. Observers have…
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Background Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gazprom. It operates in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area. The company is focused on gas and gas condensate production. Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg holds licenses for the development and production of hydrocarbons from the Yamburgskoye and Zapolyarnoye fields and is preparing for commercial production the Severo-Kamennomyssky, Kamennomysskoye-Sea, Obsky, Chugoryakhinsky, Tazovsko-Zapolyarny and Yuzhno-Parusovy subsurface areas, and, as part of joint ventures, the Parusovy,…
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More than 10,500 Russian soldiers and dozens of warships will take part in the country’s second annual naval drills in the Baltic Sea, the Defense Ministry has said. The exercises come amid simmering tensions between Russia and its NATO-member neighbors in the Baltics. The Russian Navy’s Aug. 1-9 “Ocean Shield” exercises involve 10,634 troops, 49…
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Russia’s Foreign Ministry has softened its refusal to issue visas for teachers at a Moscow school run by the U.S., British and Canadian embassies amid signs of a slight thaw in tensions between the Kremlin and Washington. The Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued seven of the 30 visas requested, which will allow all current students…
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Russians’ trust in television news as a news source dropped by 25% in the past decade, according to the independent Levada Center pollster’s latest report on the national media landscape. Television remains the biggest news source for Russians despite becoming less trusted over the past decade, past Levada polling has said. Trust in television news…
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Russia has tested its high-speed military internet that can send encrypted data over long distances, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reported Thursday. The secure military internet tests come three months before parts of a Russian law tightening state control over the internet come into effect. Lawmakers say “internet sovereignty” will protect the Russian-language segment of the…
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Russia’s law enforcement authorities will look into whether arson was a factor behind the raging wildfires across Siberia, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday as emergency officials decried insufficient firefighting efforts. The vast wildfires that have engulfed forest areas the size of Belgium were initially thought to be triggered by a combination of dry lightning and…
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U.S. President Donald Trump offered his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin help in putting out vast wildfires that are raging in Siberia, the Kremlin said late on Wednesday, a move it said Putin took as a sign that battered ties can be restored. The Kremlin said the two leaders had spoken by phone at Washington’s initiative, hours…
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A Russian state hospital said on Wednesday that opposition leader Alexei Navalny had tested negative for poison after falling ill in custody, but his personal doctor warned the findings were inconclusive and could be wrong. Navalny, who was jailed for 30 days last week for urging people to take part in an unauthorized protest, was rushed…
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Update: The embassy’s account has been re-activated as of late Wednesday night. Twitter has suspended the account of Russia’s Embassy in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed, with fellow Russian embassy accounts saying it was suspended for its “factual” criticism of Syrian rescue workers. Syrian rebel commanders and rights groups said Monday that Russia…
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More people have died from HIV-related causes in Russia last year than in 2017 as the country grapples with a rise in infections, according to Health Ministry data cited by the Kommersant business daily on Wednesday. More than 1.2 million people live with HIV in Russia, a figure experts say is likely underreported and that…
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Opponents of a controversial landfill in northwestern Russia have asked Sweden, Norway and Finland for help in averting an environmental crisis, the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported Tuesday. Activists have staged protests near the small train station of Shiyes for the past year against Moscow’s plans to ship 2.3 million tons of garbage there annually.…
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Rosneft boosted its supply of motor fuel (Euro-5 gasoline and diesel) to the Russian market by 6% year-on-year in H1 2019, to 14.1 million tonnes. Gasoline and diesel deliveries increased by 4.2% and 7.8%, respectively. From January to June, the Company sold 2.6 million tonnes of motor fuel within the major trading session on the…
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Russian police said they had arrested a man suspected of murdering a popular lifestyle blogger and model whose body was found in a suitcase in her apartment in Moscow. Ekaterina Karaglanova’s landlord found the 24-year-old’s body at a rented apartment Saturday after her parents had been unable to reach her by phone, the Investigative Committee…
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As 3 million hectares of remote forest burn across six regions in Russia’s Siberia and Far East – the approximate size of annexed Crimea — residents of affected areas are using social media to demand that the authorities take tougher action. Authorities have been slow to respond to the blazes and said any efforts to extinguish…
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Devastating floods hit Russia’s Irkutsk region again as the water level in local rivers has risen by over a meter on Tuesday, the local authorities said on their website. The administration of Tulun, the town in Irkutsk region almost destroyed by the first wave of floods this June, said the water in the local Iya…
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Moscow authorities have conducted raids on opposition activists and issued warnings to Muscovites in the run-up to this weekend’s planned protest to demand that opposition candidates be allowed to run in the city’s local elections. Activists have rallied for three weekends in a row after authorities barred independent candidates from running because they failed to…
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Russia could make domestic violence a crime two years after lawmakers decriminalized some forms of domestic abuse, a top senator has said after a ruling by Europe’s top human rights court put a spotlight on the issue. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) this month ruled for the first time that Russia failed to…
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On July 31, 1930, Oleg Popov was born in Moscow, where he would start work early as an apprentice typographer for Pravda newspaper at age 12. This led him to join Pravda’s athletics club, a move that would provide a useful foundation for his later career. When Popov was 15, he applied to Moscow’s State…
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Almost a quarter of Russians say they have felt their finances dwindle in recent months, according to a survey by the state-run Foundation of Public Opinion (FOM) pollster. Real incomes have declined in the past five years in Russia against the backdrop of Western sanctions and falling oil prices. As he took office last year,…
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In a YouTube video posted on the evening of July 13 that has been viewed more than half a million times, Lyubov Sobol made two announcements. The first was that Moscow’s election commission would be preventing her from running in upcoming city council elections. The second was that she would be going on a hunger…
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The popular ride-sharing service BlaBlaCar risks being banned in Russia as a passenger association seeks legislative help in cracking down on illegal buses, the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper reported Tuesday. About one-third of 900,000 bus carriers in Russia are uninsured and operate without undergoing checkups, obtaining the required permits or paying taxes, according to the All-Russian…
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On Saturday, Russia’s Navy Day was celebrated across the country, with the main events taking place in St. Petersburg. The first Navy Day was held in 1939. By 1980, Navy Day was traditionally celebrated on the last Sunday of July. In 2006, the day received status as an official Russian holiday, and the annual commemoration…
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Smog from wildfires currently raging in Siberia could reach as far as Moscow, Greenpeace Russia told The Moscow Times on Tuesday. An unprecedented number of wildfires has spread across the region since June, exceeding an area the size of annexed Crimea. Authorities have been slow to declare emergencies and firefighting efforts have been scaled back…
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Moscow – PhosAgro (MOEX/LSE ticker: PHOR), one of the world’s leading vertically integrated phosphate-based fertilizer producers, announces its operating results for 2Q and 1H 2019. Overall output of phosphate-based and nitrogen-based fertilizers in 2Q increased by 6.4% and 3.9% year-on-year respectively, while sales declined by 3.9% year-on-year to 2.2 million tonnes. PhosAgro’s production and sales…
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All of the opposition candidates running in Moscow’s local elections have been placed under arrest or sentenced to jail over a mass protest that rocked Moscow on Saturday in an unprecedented act. Nearly 1,400 demonstrators were detained, some violently, during Saturday’s rally to demand that opposition-minded candidates be allowed onto the ballot in Moscow’s city…
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A court in Moscow rejected jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s appeal for early release on health grounds on Tuesday, after he was suddenly taken ill in custody at the weekend and rushed to hospital to be treated. Navalny was jailed for 30 days last week for urging people to take part in an unauthorized opposition…
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The United States may be planning to quit an international treaty that bans nuclear explosions, using accusations of Russian non-compliance as a pretext, a Russian diplomat told the world’s main arms talks forum on Tuesday. The United States has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), although it has observed a unilateral…
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Moscow authorities will not authorize a new protest over the city’s local elections planned for this weekend after organizers argued for a more central location. Opposition candidates have called for supporters to take to the streets for a third consecutive weekend to demand that the candidates be allowed to participate in local elections. Authorities had…
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Almost two out of five Russians would not like to see President Vladimir Putin stay in office after his current term ends in 2024, according to a new poll published by the independent Levada Center pollster. The question of who will succeed Putin, the country’s longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin, has grown more pressing as…
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The number of Russians living below the poverty line has grown by half a million since early 2018, according to official data. Western sanctions and falling oil prices over the past five years have led to a decline in real incomes and a rise in consumer prices. President Vladimir Putin is pursuing a national program…
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Ukraine plans to launch a worldwide Russian-language TV channel, as part of an effort to win the hearts and minds of people living in the eastern Donbass region and Russia, a senior presidential official was quoted as saying on Monday. Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelenskiy won a landslide election victory this year promising to end…
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On Sunday morning July 28, the journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza (senior) passed away after a long illness. His son, Vladimir, who is also a prominent journalist and an opposition politician, announced that his father had died at “8 o’clock in the morning on his name-day.” He was 59 years old. Kara-Murza was a historian who became…
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Massive wildfires sweeping through Russia have spread to an area the size of annexed Crimea as regional authorities have been slow to declare emergencies and firefighting efforts have been scaled back. Scientists have observed an “unprecedented” number of wildfires in Siberia and the Russian Arctic since June. Russian authorities have said a combination of lightning…
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Moscow’s Red Square roared to life with vintage chic on Sunday as an extensive collection of unique Soviet cars cruised past the Kremlin and St. Basil’s Cathedral. The annual GUM AutoRally began in 2014 and is the most prestigious event of its kind in Russia. During the rally, 120 cars raced each other along a…
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A mass protest that rocked Moscow on Saturday was marked by one of the biggest crackdowns in recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin’s tight grip on power. The protest, which demanded that the authorities allow opposition-minded candidates onto the ballot in Moscow’s city council elections, has drawn international attention to…
DetailsTVEL JSC and Czech national power company ČEZ a.s. have signed a contractual document for introduction of the new VVER-440 fuel modification RK 3+ at Dukovany NPP. Within accomplishment of this engineering project, the new fuel will undergo a number of pre-irradiation tests, and their results would make a validation for the following licensing of…
DetailsThe core catcher, one of the most important safety components of the power plant, is delivered to the construction site. 29 July 2019, Büyükeceli, Mersin Province, Turkey – The first large-sized cargo for the Unit 1 – the core catcher – has been delivered at the Akkuyu NPP construction site. This equipment, which shall be…
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was discharged from a Moscow hospital on Monday and returned to prison under guard after being treated for what his lawyer and doctor have described as suspected poisoning from a chemical agent. Navalny, 43, was rushed to hospital from jail on Sunday with what his spokeswoman said were signs of…
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Russia plans to educate youngsters in military-patriotic themes in a new $63 million facility at its sprawling military-themed park outside Moscow, the RBC news website reported Monday. The militarization of young Russians has been a controversial topic in the past several years, with President Vladimir Putin’s establishment of the Youth Army in late 2015 drawing…
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hospitalized on Sunday after suffering an acute allergic reaction which one doctor said may have been the result of him being poisoned with an unknown chemical substance. Navalny, 43, was rushed to hospital on Sunday morning from jail where he is serving a 30-day sentence for violating tough protest…
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July 29, 2019 Severstal Digital LLC (a division of PJSC Severstal) has developed a neural network to detect surface defects in Metal Processing Shop No. 2 (TsOM-2), which produces flat rolled products at the Cherepovets steel mill (CherMK). The Company has already launched a pilot project to confirm the model’s accuracy as one of the…
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North Korea has released a Russian fishing boat held after being accused of violating entry regulations, the Russian embassy in North Korea said on Sunday, in an incident that prompted a Russian warning of a freezing of talks on fisheries cooperation. North Korea detained the 15 Russian and two South Korean crew members of the fishing boat on July…
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For two weeks, the authorities had allowed Russia’s political opposition to vent frustration in the capital’s streets over the decision of election officials to bar anti-establishment candidates from running in upcoming local elections. But after some 22,500 people turned out for a protest in central Moscow last weekend that was approved by city officials —…
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Mikhail Lermontov was born on Oct. 15, 1814 in Moscow to a noble military family. When he was three years old, his mother died of tuberculosis and Mikhail’s father sent him to live with his grandmother in Tarkhany in southwest Russia where he would spend most of his childhood. His grandmother provided a lavish lifestyle…
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Russian police have detained prominent members of the opposition in Moscow ahead of a planned protest later on Saturday which the authorities have declared illegal and warned could become violent. The demonstration, due to be held outside the Moscow mayor’s office from 2 p.m. local time, is designed to protest against what the opposition says…
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Alisa Ganieva first came to literary prominence in 2009 when her novella, “Salam, Dalgat!,” which she wrote under a male pseudonym, won the prestigious Debut Prize. The novella portrays a day on the streets of the Dagestani capital of Makhachkala, and the writer astonished audience members and jurors alike when she revealed her female identity…
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Russian beauty pageants are dominated by skinny girls, but now some models are calling for a chance to show their curves on stage. Meet Eva Ross, a proud new model, who is part of the body positivity movement and who aims to conquer the global fashion scene from Russia.
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To keep our newsroom in Moscow running, we need your support. With your help, we can continue with our mission to keep you informed with breaking news, business analysis, thought-provoking opinions, the best of culture and insights into everyday life.
Arctic winters are long and the next one is just around the corner. Stockpiles across Russia’s vast northern coastline and in its remote Arctic archipelagos are already running low and will soon be in need of fresh supplies. The only way to deliver supplies to the region is by boat and the delivery window is…
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One of Moscow’s few English-language movie theaters has asked the Russian Constitutional Court to settle a dispute over censorship stemming from its release of director Armando Iannucci’s “The Death of Stalin” last year. Pioner Cinema was raided and fined in early 2018 for screening the satirical film on the power struggle that took place following…
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Russia‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday warned British media operating in Russia that they should be ready to face the consequences after a British regulator fined Russia‘s RT state-financed TV channel. Moscow was responding after Ofcom, Britain’s media regulator, earlier on Friday fined RT £200,000 ($248,740) for breaching broadcasting impartiality rules in its coverage of the poisoning…
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Russia has called on the United States to end its “discriminatory” visa policy toward Russian athletes after it denied a visa to tennis star Svetlana Kuznetsova, effectively forcing her to skip a tournament to defend her title. Kuznetsova, 34, will not be able to defend her title at the July 27-Aug. 4 Citi Open in…
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